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PaperclipPerfector  15d ago (text post)   28930 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 2, 2026

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Lmao ok friend I'm sorry for assuming that of you. But then I'll ask you one in return, why did you ask him a pointed question of "Are you claiming that Israel has done something unlawful? If so, exactly what law was broken?"

Because it looked a lot to me like you were hoping to bait him into saying "no law was broken" so you could go "aha! So by your own admission there was no wrongdoing"

Thanks for the apology. And the answer to your question is very simple. The individual, in effect, accused Israel of "collusion" The very first definition of "collude" that I found requires that the behavior at issue be either secret or unlawful. He'd already admitted that the behavior was not secret. So the only question left was whether it was unlawful. That's why I brought it up.

Of course I agree that behavior can be both lawful and wrong. My main argument here is that standards should be applied consistently and fairly. If you have a kind of isolationist attitude; you think that America should never stick its neck out for other countries (whether it's Israel, South Korea, England, France, Saudi Arabia, or Bahrain), then fine. I have no problem with that.

Actually, that's not totally true. The problem I see with isolationism is that some Great Power is going to dominate the Persian Gulf, and the major seas for that matter. I'm not sure how practical it is for the US to simply stay uninvolved in all the sh*t that will inevitably go down. But I don't have a strong opinion on this.

I wouldn't say never but the bar needs to be high, the goals need to be clear, and the plan to achieve those goals needs to be even more clear

In theory, this seems reasonable. I'll leave it at that.

Up until the date hostilities (re)started, this was the USA. A USN Burke could sail around the Persian Gulf with all its radar/missiles off, hell they could disable their engine and broadcast their location, and no one would dare put a finger on it. Now? Not so much (idk if the Iranians could actually land the hit, but they'd definitely try).

Sure, but that requires having bases, and therefore client states, in the Gulf. Which means entanglement.

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